Cisco Launches SSE Solution, Previews AI Integrations at Cisco Live
Among the company's announcements at Cisco Live is a new security service edge offering.
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The company unveiled its Cisco Secure Access security service edge (SSE) offering, which will enter limited availability in July and general availability in October.
The offering steers application traffic to private data center and public hyperscaler-based points-of-presence destinations.
Cisco executives said the Cisco Secure Access keeps users from needing to reauthenticate throughout the work day.
Jeetu Patel, executive VP and general manager of security and collaboration at Cisco, compared it to plumbing. A thirsty person going for a drink of water does not manually select the type of pipe – be it copper or iron – through which they will get their water. They just want the water. Similar, Patel said users and IT teams shouldn’t have to rearrange their “security plumbing” – be it zero-trust network access, VPN or direct – each time they access an app.
“With Cisco Secure Access, we are removing the burden from the user and providing a superior experience with frictionless access to all applications — not just some — to enable secure, hybrid work,” said Patel. “Our unmatched visibility of the network gives us an advantage that no other company has — and we truly believe that where security meets the network, Cisco is the best in the world.”
It uses threat intelligence from Cisco’s AI-based Talos platform and embedded network visibility from Cisco ThousandEyes.
Enterprise Strategy Group principal analyst John Grady said security teams looking to deploy SSE will benefit from “integrated solutions that focus on simplicity, scale, and user experience.”
“Organizations are deploying SSE for a variety of reasons, but improving security outcomes is arguably at the top of the list. Achieving this requires an emphasis on users to create a frictionless experience and simplifying security team processes to improve efficiency and ensure consistency,” Grady said.
World Wide Technology is one of Cisco’s largest partners.
Neil Anderson, WWT’s area vice president of cloud and infrastructure solutions, said Cisco’s SSE strategy will help WWT’s customers attain business goals.
“With Cisco Secure Access, our customers gain a simplified way of accessing both private, cloud and SaaS applications, private and internet resources, while transparently securing against threats and boosting user productivity while reducing frustration,” Anderson said.
Cisco made several other announcements for its cybersecurity portfolio.
The company unveiled the Secure Firewall 4200 Series, which it describes as a hybrid work enabler. The firewall uses Cisco’s 7.4 OS to provide encrypted threat blocking, threat inspection and simplified branch routing. It will be generally available in September.
Cisco also launched Cisco Multicloud Defense, which stems from its recent acquisition of Valtix. It is a single software platform with a single policy for managing operations in AWS, GCP, Azure and OCI.
In addition, Cisco’s Panoptica application security platform will include cloud security posture management (CSPM) starting in the fall.
Cisco also announced that its is exploring previewing generative AI capabilities in Cisco Security Cloud platform for the first time.
AI will tackle two specific use cases for now. First, it will take rules from the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center to run an generative AI-based “Policy Assistant.” Then a “SOC Assistant” will provide SOC analysts with context about incidents and function as a resource for determining remediation approaches.
Cisco launched a new Full-Stack Observability (FSO) platform, which taps into multiple vendor partners and OpenTelemetry.
The FSO platform spans visibility for multiple levels, including application, networking, infrastructure and security. It includes a solution called Native Application Observability, which provides cost insights, Kubernetes workload resource utilization and an application-based business risk score.
“Full-Stack Observability is critical in today’s digital-first business environment,” said Liz Centoni, Cisco’s executive vice president, chief strategy officer and general manager, applications. “Cisco Full-Stack Observability brings together network intelligence, security insights and application observability across the multicloud environment and the full technology stack to enable enterprises to deliver unmatched digital experiences with deep business context.”
The self-described vendor-agnostic platform harnesses partnerships with CloudFabrix, Evolutio and Kanari.
NTT partners very closely with Cisco around observability. Hospitality giant Royal Caribbean has notably partnered with the company to implement full-stack observability. In particular, NTT helped Royal Caribbean implement Cisco AppDynamics for application visibility and Cisco ThousandEyes for visibility.
Joe Maissel, NTT’s vice president of digital advisory and services, said the combination of NTT’s managed services and Cisco’s technology is helping Royal Caribbean cut down on mean time to resolution. Traditionally, too much time is wasted on figuring out where the problem actually resides, Maissel said.
“Too many organizations struggle with trying to quickly determine, ‘Do I have a network problem? Do I have an application problem? Do I have a data center problem? Do I have a database problem?’” Maissel told Channel Futures.
Maissel said he sees the Cisco FSO platform moving toward more unification of application, network and data center visibility. And that wider, more integrated cross-section opens up what Maissel and NTT call “pragmatic innovation.”
“As we get into situations with our clients where we have to resolve issues more effectively, and we discover that there are telemetry and data that needs to come from a source that we weren’t considering before, we’ll now have the option to bring that data in order to correlate it and identify problems faster. And that’s a form of innovation – that the platform allows you to bring in sources of data that you wouldn’t have been able to in the past. It opens up the possibility of providing an even more effective managed service and better outcomes for our clients,” he said.
Maissel said the FSO evolution also represents an opportunity to tackle a key pain point customers face around vendor sprawl. NTT, IDG and Cisco recently conducted a survey on the observability tools customers are using. Maissel said the businesses on average use 17 tools for observability.
Moreover, many customers listed the consolidation of those tools as a pressing concern.
“I think that Cisco making further investments here will allow our clients and our customers to turn more to a single vendor to cover at all,” he said.
On the application security side, Cisco enhanced its Panoptica offering to provide end-to-end life cycle protection.
The updates include an Attack Path Engine, which provides protection, policy management and remediation. And Panoptica will integrate with Cisco’s Security Insights module for Cloud Native Application Observability.
Executives said the updates will help businesses more easily identify risks associated with their applications, in an age where they are relying more and more on complex applications for business-critical functions.
“Our customers deserve a true partner and total confidence in the protection of their critical applications, data and workloads,” Centoni said. “Panoptica offers a differentiated experience by bringing these powerful capabilities together for complete code to cloud security coverage. Backed by Cisco’s unrivaled portfolio of end-to-end security solutions, we’re here to help our customers supercharge their application security at scale.”
In addition, Panoptica will get the aformentioned Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) capability in September.
Cisco announced various ways in which it has simplified its Networking Cloud management platform.
The vendor has created single sign-on (SSO) across its networking platforms, as well as an API key exchange and repository that links with SSO.
In addition, Cisco Networking Cloud now includes cross-platform navigation between different Cisco networking platforms.
“Today we are sharing our vision and first steps to eliminate networking complexity and securely connect the world,” said Jonathan Davidson, executive vice president and general manager of Cisco Networking. “Only Cisco has the portfolio, experience and partner ecosystem to bring together campus and branch, data center, compute, IoT and SD-WAN to optimize outcomes using one networking management platform to deliver unified experiences.”
Viptela SD-WAN now goes as Catalyst SD-WAN.
That’s part of a larger series of rebrands under the Catalyst umbrella. For example, the DNA Center management platform now goes as Catalyst Center, and DNA Software and Licensing now goes as Catalyst Software and Licensing.
In addition, Cisco is letting customers consume the SD-WAN solution in a flexible subscription model. In that model Cisco handles the deployment and management of the SD-WAN fabric.
Viptela SD-WAN now goes as Catalyst SD-WAN.
That’s part of a larger series of rebrands under the Catalyst umbrella. For example, the DNA Center management platform now goes as Catalyst Center, and DNA Software and Licensing now goes as Catalyst Software and Licensing.
In addition, Cisco is letting customers consume the SD-WAN solution in a flexible subscription model. In that model Cisco handles the deployment and management of the SD-WAN fabric.
CISCO LIVE — Cisco is creating more unification and integration across its portfolio, coupled with new offerings in cybersecurity and observability.
The IT giant unveiled a new security service edge (SSE) offering at its annual Cisco Live conference, which kicked off Monday. That announcement came alongside a new firewall series and enhancements to Cisco’s Cloud Native Application Security platform.
The vendor also unveiled the latest version of its Full-Stack Observability Platform, touting an increasing unification of different data domains. In addition, Cisco revealed how it will use generative AI to assist cybersecurity professionals. Generative AI will power both an automated policy assistant and an automated SOC assistant. The company also is making a point of highlighting the ways in which it is simplifying and integrating its network management platforms. Users logging in to the Meraki portal can access several other platforms through the same sign-on.
Above: Cisco’s Alexandra Zagury with Channel Futures’ James Anderson at the 2023 Channel Partners Conference & Expo.
Cisco executives are driving home the company’s emphasis on integration. Whereas IT platforms historically operated in silos and cybersecurity typically existed as disparate patchwork, those technologies are coming together respectively as customers demand a more simple experience.
Cisco is hosting Cisco Live in Las Vegas. Thousands of Cisco employees, partners and customers are attending.
Cisco’s Chuck Robbins
“We believe there’s huge opportunity ahead for Cisco, as we’re uniquely positioned to help our customers solve many of their biggest business challenges using technology. Whether security, connectivity, applications or sustainability, Cisco is the partner of choice to help our customers transform and adapt,” Cisco chair and CEO Chuck Robbins said.
Scroll through the 10 images above to see highlights from Cisco’s lengthy list of new solutions and capabilities.
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